How did policy actors use mass media to influence the Scottish alcohol minimum unit pricing debate? Comparative analysis of newspapers, evidence submissions and interviews

Figures & data

Table 1. Summary of the divergence between the framing of the minimum unit pricing debate by advocates and critics in UK newspapers.

	Advocates	Critics
Overall framing of the debate	Emphasised the existing burden of alcohol-related harms to provide a reason for targeting health and social disorder issues	Emphasised that minimum unit pricing will not work, sometimes without providing supportive reasons and tended to avoid describing drivers of the alcohol problem
Drivers of the alcohol problem	Cheap alcohol, especially loss leading Irresponsible alcohol marketing	Problem people: youth binge drinkers and dependent drinkers
		Problem attitudes to alcohol
Arguments about minimum unit pricing	Targets cheap drinks and irresponsible retailing Targets alcohol misuse Will reduce social and health harms	No evidence it will be effective Will punish responsible drinkers Will punish the poor Will harm businesses Will lead to illicit alcohol trading Will be illegal

Table summarises material reported in (Hilton, Wood, Patterson, & Katikireddi, 2014).

Table 2. Summary of dominant framing of minimum unit pricing in evidence submissions to the Scottish Parliament (triangulated with interviewee data).

	Non-industry related advocates	Industry-related advocates	Critics
Overall framing of the debate	Need to reduce overall population consumption to address alcohol-related harms Alcohol-related harms have increased hugely over last three decades	Need to target those who are behaving irresponsibly Alcohol misuse is a serious issue	Need to target those who are behaving irresponsibly Problem drinking is reducing in last few years
Drivers of the alcohol problem	Increasing affordability of alcohol, particularly in the off-sales environment	Increasing affordability of alcohol but must remember need for individual responsibility	Culture of irresponsible consumption Problem people: young binge drinkers and dependent drinkers
Arguments about minimum  unit pricing	Evidence demonstrates is effective Essential part of multi-component strategy Targets those at greatest risk of harm Reduces health inequalities, as poor at greatest risk of harms Will improve drinking patterns, with lower strength drinks and move to licensed premises Will lead to economic gains due to less absenteeism	Targets those who misuse alcohol Complements education Experience in Canada shows it does not harm industry	Will not change behaviour of the most problematic drinkers Alternative solutions: Education and licensing law (changes had recently occurred) Will harm businesses Will punish responsible drinkers Will punish the poor Will lead to illicit alcohol trading Questions around legality

Table summarises material originally presented in (Katikireddi, Bond, & Hilton, 2014).

Table 3. Quotations illustrating the ways policy actors used the mass media to further their policy interests.

Examples of strategic use of the mass media
Civil Servant: We were really, really active, so any time any new research was published we were putting press lines out. We had a guy in the press office because it was just like, let’s turn the volume up on this. And, we were pretty much every week or every couple of weeks, I had like a list of what reports are coming out, planning to get a story out off the back of those things or if the minister was doing a visit that was relevant or, you know? So, it was quite planned in that sense and working quite closely with key partners to ensure that there was a sort of degree of consistency about the messages that we were putting out.
Advocate: In terms of public opinion, if you look at the tracking of public opinion in terms of support for minimum pricing in Scotland – one of the agencies that was working, ad agencies that was working for the [Scottish] Government did some tracking – then basically there was a point in Scotland where the alcohol industry had three public affairs consultancies working for them, and the brief that the consultancies had was to get media stories in the press in order to remove minimum pricing from the Alcohol (etc) Act 2010. So, there was a period in the summer [where] there was about three anti-minimum unit pricing stories in the media every week, which clearly, they [alcohol-related industries] had three public affairs agencies working for them, so they were doing what they were paid to do. And, if you looked at public opinion, it almost tracked exactly that media coverage. So when you had lots of anti-minimum pricing stuff, public opinion went down, when you had, when, you know, Health Scotland, ourselves or others [public health organisations] were having a profile in the press for stuff, public opinion went up. So, it’s a factor, and you have to, as public health advocates, you have to maximise your use of it [the mass media] to the benefit of the public interest.

Table A1. Stakeholder positions based on manifest content analysis of evidence submissions to the Scottish Parliament’s Health and Sport Committee.

	Position
Sector	Supportive	Not explicit	Neutral	Against
Academic	– Peter Anderson – Royal Society of Edinburgh – Centre for Addictions Research of British Columbia – University of Aberdeen – University of Stirling – University of the West of England	– Anne Ludbrook – Prevention Research Centre – Queen Margaret University – Glasgow Centre for Study of Violence – University of the West of Scotland – Violence Reduction Unit Scotland	– ScHARR – Law Society of Scotland – Medical Research Council	– CEBR
Health actor	– SHAAP – Faculty of Public Health – Scottish Association for Mental Health – Academy of Royal Medical Colleges – Alcohol Health Alliance – Dr. EM Armstrong (Former CMO) – NHS Ayrshire Clinical Forum – NHS Borders & South Borders Council – NHS Borders Health Improvement Team – NHS Health Scotland – NHS Orkney Chair – Royal College of General Practitioners Scotland – Royal College of Nurses – Royal College of Physicians – Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh – Royal College of Psychiatrists Scotland – Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh – Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh – Scottish Patients’ Association – Scottish Ambulance Service – Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Teams +14 Local Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships +11 NHS Health Boards	– Dr. Forrester Cockburn – Dr. Macleod – Midlothian Alcohol and Drugs Partnership – Chris Record (member of UK Health Alliance) – Renfrewshire Licensing Forum – Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow – Nick Sheron (hepatologist)	– Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse – Health Protection Scotland	– Addiction Recovery Training Services
Individual	7 individuals		1 individual	3 individuals
Off-trade	– Broadway Convenience Store	– Mitchell’s & Butlers		– Scottish Grocers’ Federation – Scottish Beer and Pub Association – Scottish Retail Consortium
On-trade	– Scottish Licensed Trade Association – NOCTIS – Castle Leisure Group	– British Institute of Innkeeping
Producer	– Tennent’s Caledonian Breweries Ltd. – Molson Coors UK – Chivas Brothers Ltd.		– BAC Canada Brewers	– Whyte & Mackay – Scotch Whisky Association – NACM – Portman Group – SIBA – Diageo – Edrington Group – Gin and Vodka Association – Heineken – SABMiller
Public sector	– West Dunbartonshire Licensing Forum – Association of Directors of Social Work – Dumbarton East and Central Community Council – North Aberdeenshire Licensing Forum – Scottish Commissioner for Children and Young People – Silverton and Overtoun Community Council – South Aberdeenshire Licensing Forum
+ 7 Licensing Boards
+ 7 Local authorities	– City of Edinburgh Licensing Standards – Glasgow City Council Licensing Board – Convention of Scottish Local Authorities – East Lothian Licensing Board – Moray Licensing Board – North Lanarkshire Council, Sports – West Dunbartonshire Council – West Lothian Licensing Board	– Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario – Liquor Control Board of Ontario – Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission – Highland Licensing Board – Aberdeen City Council	– Clackmannanshire Licensing Board – East Renfrewshire Licensing Board
Supermarket		– Tesco		– Asda – Sainsburys – Cooperative supermarket – Morrisons
Trade representative	– Association of the Chief Police Officers of Scotland – NUS Scotland – BMA Scotland – Campaign for Real Ale – Scottish Police Federation	– British Hospitality Association – Federation of Small Businesses – General Medical Council	– Counselling and Psychotherapy in Scotland – Unison Scotland	– CBI Scotland – Scottish Centre for Development and Industry
Voluntary	– Salvation Army – Children in Scotland – Aberlour Child Care Trust – Youth Link Scotland – Alcohol Focus Scotland – Consumer Focus Scotland – Alcohol Concern – Barnardo’s Scotland – Breakthrough Breast Cancer – Children in Scotland – Church of Scotland – Institute for Alcohol Studies – Poverty Truth Commission – Church of Scotland, Presbytery of Edinburgh – Scottish Episcopal Church – Scottish Youth Commission on Alcohol – Scottish Youth Parliament	– Home Safety Scotland – Scottish Women’s Convention	– Action for Children Scotland	– The International Coalition Against Prohibition

The following criteria were used to categorise the position of actors, based on the manifest content of their evidence submissions to the Scottish Parliament’s Health and Sport Committee: Supportive = explicitly states that the stakeholder favours minimum unit pricing; Against = explicitly states that the stakeholder opposes minimum unit pricing; Neutral = presents both positive and negative statements regarding minimum unit pricing and does not explicitly adopt either of the above positions; Not explicit =presents no explicit statements regarding supportiveness and therefore does not reveal the stakeholder’s position on minimum unit pricing. In addition, some actors were classified as exempt if they were unable to express an explicit opinion because of the statutory nature of their organisation, e.g. some civil service actors.

Hilton, S., Wood, K., Patterson, C., & Katikireddi, S.V. (2014). Implications for alcohol minimum unit pricing advocacy: What can we learn for public health from UK newsprint coverage of key claim-makers in the policy debate? Social Science & Medicine, 102, 157–164

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Katikireddi, S.V., & Smith, K.E. (2014). Minimum unit pricing of alcohol in Scotland. In Hill, M. (Ed.), Studying public policy. Bristol: Policy Press

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